Ibuka Blue

Ibuka-Blue

By

Kenneth G. Donnelly

(rewrite 11-04-09)



Prologue



Police cars make a distinct sound. The extra electronics inside a police car require additional power, and when the cars idle, the sound they make is cyclic.

Ed Campanelli cringed at the sound of the police car, and tried to keep still. He tried not to breathe. He listened to that distinct sound. The rhythmic cycle of the extra power coursing through the cruiser that was stopped about ten feet away from his spot.

He’d picked the place at random, too tired to look for anything better. He had not been careful. He had just fallen down, exhausted.

Ed snuggled the dry bed of leaves beneath him, pressing the right side of his face deep down, and something poked into his ear, rustling softly like a live thing, a spider, or a cockroach. A primeval sound escaped passed his lips, not a scream, or a grunt, but the stillborn child of his terror. He resisted closing his eyes, and pressed down deeper under the prim row of manicured hedges. A musty earth odor rose like a gas, and it became hard to breathe, even through his nose.

Blinding bright white light passed over him and stopped. Despite his fear, Ed smiled at a toad he found there looking back at him from its place among the leaves. It stared directly into his right eye, and seemed to share his secret.

“Quiet,” the toad seemed to be saying, “don’t move.”

Ed closed his eyes, and made a silent plea to God. Please Lord, please, make the thing in my ear stop itching. God did not answer, and the itch intensified. He hung on, sweating under the bush and the intense light. The itch, the evil crawling itch, it would not stop. Just as the light began to move on Ed turned his head, and a dry cracked leaf shard slipped out of his ear. The light swung back. Even the toad understood.

“Found,” the toad appeared to say before it hopped once, stopped, waited, and hopped again, escaping the horrible revealing light.

Ed closed his eyes again, but gave up his dialogue with God. He cringed there in the bushes, and the light appeared red as it burned through his clenched eyelids. He listened to the distinct sound of the police car, and shuttered as he heard the car’s door open and then close. Ed thanked Christ he was sober for a change, and jumped up from his spot under the bushes. He ran, tripping and stumbling in temporary blindness so that the cop’s first shot was a miss. The bullet whizzed by, and Ed soiled himself. Urine dripped down his legs and spread in a dark shadow on the front of his jeans. He ran on as his sight slowly returned, offering him a sad wisp of hope. He felt like a kid, like it was all some stupid game: Kick the Can, Tag, or Ringolevio. He was smiling as he marveled at his own luck, wondering for the millionth time how it had all come to this. He was Ed Campanelli for God’s sake. He’d served eight years in the United States Army. He’d put in ten years at The Factory, and would still be there right now working the assembly line putting together the finest electronic widgets the U.S. dollar could buy, if the fucking robots hadn’t shown up to take his damn job. He was Ed fucking Campanelli and he was homeless.

He was running under a streetlight, passing a row of beautiful modern cars that all had Ibuka-Blue. The cars appeared to squawk as the strange blue orbs blinked and flashed in their own silent language.

Ed was thinking he was going to make it when a bullet ripped off the top of his skull, and he sprawled to the ground, rolled in a grim inelegant heap, and came to rest under a pulsing Ibuka-Blue orb set in the quarter panel of an expensive luxury automobile-Made in Japan. The warm glow of the little Ibuka-Blue orb cast a pall over Ed’s exposed brain, making it appear rotten, like a piece of old fruit.

Ed was homeless, and they killed him for it. Not unlike the way the Nazis treated the Jews in that long ago struggle of good against evil.



Chapter 1 Celebrations



Emmett Houser lost his footing and dropped off the curb falling four inches onto Central Avenue. He looked around nervously, the way people do when they fall, and they are not hurt, but ashamed.

Just a misstep, he thought, a stumble.

A dark haired girl wearing a white turtleneck sweater with a bright red scarf noticed him. Emmett watched her watching him. She was leaning against the Ashland building with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She shook her head no three times, admonishing him.

Christ! Does she work in the office? he wondered.

The car was parked two blocks down; Emmett looked away from the girl searching for it. He did not want to go home-he wanted to be home. He spotted the car, a silver four-door luxury model, parked right where he’d left it two hours ago. When he looked back the girl was gone. He stood there in the gutter trying to remember what color her scarf had been. He was certain she’d been wearing holiday colors, but could not remember which ones. Was it red and green she’d been wearing? Or had it been silver and gold? Something Christmassy, he was sure.

He approached his car reluctantly, calculating each slow, cautious step.

He hated the car. He never wanted the damn thing. The wife. The bitch! She had to have it. It had every available option including an electronic Ibuka-Blue soul. Ibuka-Blue represented the future, a future that included a silky, silicon nightmare, a virtual kudzu capable of choking the life out of its creators. It knew! Ibuka-Blue knew, and it was there in his over priced luxury car, waiting for him.

Emmett stepped back up onto the sidewalk.

“Hey, spare a cigarette?” he asked a passerby.

“Don’t smoke,” the guy said without stopping.

Emmett didn’t either. He unbuttoned his suit coat and tugged at his tie, loosening it.

He considered taking a cab, but the taxis had Ibuka-Blue too, and for an insane moment he thought about walking home. He looked at the car, and quickly looked away.

The car knew. It knew how much he earned, where he worked, how much he paid in taxes, who he voted for, where he shopped, what he bought, what he watched, how often he went to church, how much credit he had, what his credit score was, where he ate, what he drank, where he slept, and who he slept with. It also knew that he’d gotten a DUI, and it was willing, in the blink of an eye-no thanks to Ibuka-Blue, to share any information with the blender, the toaster, the house, any device also installed with Ibuka-Blue. If he had parked in front of the Ashland building, the building, and the rent-a-cop security guard inside the building, would know everything about him.

Emmett jammed his hands deep into his pants pockets. He was standing outside a crowded little bar watching people bustle up and down Central Avenue, their breath visible in the cold night air. He couldn’t feel a thing. He pulled his right hand out of its pocket, and checked his watch, pretending to be waiting for someone. He could not remember how many drinks he’d had. Four? Five? It was after six o’clock and the booze was done creeping up on him. The booze was taking over. He had to fight just to keep still, resisting the urge to move to the muffled music drifting from the bar. He noticed the volume change whenever someone opened the door, and the music worked a spell on him, and he started swaying to the beat. He caught himself, and looked around, but there was no one there watching him this time, only the lines of cars parked along the curb silently gossiping under the streetlights. His car was there, and for a moment he forgot all about what it knew, and found himself wondering about what secrets it may have. What did Ibuka-Blue know that he didn’t? The Ibuka-Blue orbs glowed with a trademarked eldritch blue light that made him shiver.

He wanted to check into a hotel. The Vinoy was within walking distance. He pulled his wallet out and counted his cash. Not enough. He sifted through a stack of credit cards, all of them good, and all of them useless. As soon as he used a card, the car would know, and not long after that, the house would know, and then of course, Sylvia would know. The house may not ask any questions, but Sylvia certainly would. Emmett pulled his tie tight, buttoned his coat, and walked up to his car. A burst of light flashed bright as lightning from the driver’s side window as the car checked his identification, but the door did not unlock, or even open. He had insisted that the dealer disable some of the retina options, when, after the first year of Ibuka-Blue, more than ten thousand U.S. citizens wound up without eyeballs. From his pocket he pulled a plastic key chain with only three keys on it. He waved one at the door and it unlocked. He pulled the door open, and leaned on it, steadying himself, staring at his expensive car, all its sleek lines and curves, a glaring symbol of prestige, a hated chaperone. An electric bell chimed, reminding him that the door was open.

Ding. Ding. Ding. The car waited. Emmett stood there, defiant. The speed of the chimes increased as the car prompted him in or out. He dropped down into the driver’s seat.

“Hello Emmett,” the car said in its slick female monotone, and he imagined he could detect a note of contempt in its cold electric voice. After he pulled the door closed he heard a quick hiss of air, as if the car were gasping.

“Where have you been?” it asked.

Another quick sniff, an intake of air, as the car gave him the breathalyzer. His blood alcohol level popped up on the center console screen. Emmett looked, and noticed the message light blinking incessantly. Someone had been trying to reach him, and had left a number of messages. Emmett said nothing. Ibuka-Blue could do many things, but it could not make him comfortable holding conversations with his possessions.

“You’ve been drinking,” the car said. “We’ll be late for Kelly’s party,” it continued.

Kelly’s party; sweet sixteen, only he was never going to be able to think of his daughter as sweet again; not after stumbling into her bedroom only to find her with a guy on top of her, probably inside of her, if not all the way, than at least half way. He’d caught one snap shot of them frozen in the light flooding in from the hall, looking up at him with silent expressions of shock on their faces. He’d walked past them to her bedroom window, and pulled down one of the blinds.

“Look, the Swanson’s have their Christmas lights up already,” he’d said.

“Richard,” he’d heard Kelly say, and that one breathless whisper set fire to his soul. It burned out of control while he’d listened to the rustling of clothes as they hurried to get dressed in the dark. He’d wanted to tell them to turn on the light, but hadn’t wanted to see Richard’s face again. Instead he’d concentrated on the Swanson’s discount store Christmas manger. It was made of cheap white plastic, and the gaudy thing was so old the paint had peeled away, so that the figures looked like little white ghosts huddled on the neighbor’s front lawn. Behind the Mary, and the Joseph, and the baby Jesus, a huge inflatable Santa loomed like a Japanese monster threatening to destroy Tokyo. The eaves of the house were lined with blinking colored lights, and at each corner hung an inflatable ornament, the one on the right side was punctured, and dangled like a limp sack of Technicolor gloom.

“Wow, they sure put up a lot of lights,” Emmett had said. “I think I’ll just stand here and enjoy them for a few minutes, and when I turn around, you better not been in my fucking house any more-Richard.”

Richard had been laughing, but his laughter tapered off like the last few gunshots in some long forgotten war.

The Swanson’s had put a team of plastic reindeer up on their roof, and the two in the front were sprawled on their sides, sliding off the roof like a couple of holiday drunks on a seasonal bender.

He’d heard Richard’s heavy footsteps, plodding to the front door, but Kelly did not accompany him, and they did not exchange good byes. Emmett watched the boy’s vague silhouette sprint toward the Christmas lights, climb into a car, and drive away. He could not look at his daughter.



Sweet sixteen my ass, Emmett thought.

“We won’t be late if you let me drive,” he said to the car. From the center of the steering wheel one Ibuka-Blue orb looked at him, and its glow increased in intensity, silently acknowledging his voice.

“You know you can’t drink and drive,” the car said.

The center console emitted a shrill beep, and the screen flashed his blood alcohol level. He’d had too much to drink, and the car knew it.

“We won’t be late if you let me drive,” he said again.

“You know you can’t drink and drive,” the car reasoned, “it’s against the law.”

He was already wondering how long it would be before Sylvia knew. Not long. By now the information was swimming in the ether, over fiber optic wires, bouncing off satellites, to the Ibuka-Blue chip at the heart of his twenty million dollar home. Hell, by now the refrigerator was probably yucking it up with the toaster. Lord of the manor’s sauced again! The house would know, and it would tell his wife. He pushed a button and the display changed from his blood alcohol level to a frozen image of Sylvia’s face. He stared at her image, trying to gauge her mood by the one frozen frame. For a moment, it was almost possible for him to remember the good times, but the picture could not dispel the truth in Sylvia’s eyes.

“What time did this message come in?” he asked.

“Sylvia called at 1:00 P.M.,” said the car.

He pushed another button on the console. Sylvia’s face came to life on the screen.

“Hello Emmett,” she said, sounding almost as animated as the car. “You know it’s Kelly’s big day. Well, stop and pick up the cake on your way home, okay? I couldn’t get to it.”

The fucking blender and the toaster can gossip with my car, but no technology yet invented can get my ungrateful wife off of her ass? As soon as he thought it he knew that he was being unfair. Kelly was the oldest of four, including Steven, the two year old, born at the end of their last ditch effort to save the smoldering remains of their marriage.

Sylvia stayed at home with the kids because they needed her, and not just because she could. It had nothing to do with not going to work.

“I need a birthday cake,” he said to the car.

The Ibuka-Blue light pulsed to the sound of his voice.

Silence. The car hesitated as he fidgeted in the driver’s seat looking at the center console where a second image of Sylvia waited.

“You have more messages,” the car said.

A cop car pulled up outside Emmett’s window. He pretended not to notice. The cop behind the wheel lowered the passenger side window on his cruiser, and pointed a Buka-Wand at Emmett. A bright white flash left Emmett momentarily blind, and the window beside him rolled down, as commanded by the officer.

“Got a call about an unsafe driver,” the cop said.

Emmett blinked and rubbed his eyes.

“I’m okay, the car can drive itself.”

“Oh, you’ve got the new Kubrick 11 model, gottcha,” the cop said, as if cars hadn’t been driving themselves for the past five years.

“ My bad. You have a nice night, and a safe trip home. Careful next time you go to have a drink, Ibuka-Blue says your blood alcohol level is…”

“I know what my blood alcohol level is. The car has been reminding me every ten seconds since I sat down.”

The cop gave him a look that could curdle a gallon of milk, but said no more. He flashed his cruiser lights, and let the siren warble as he drove off.

“Play the next message,” Emmett said to his car.

“Where the hell are you,” Sylvia screamed, her face a comic visage of panic rendered in glorious high def on the car’s center console screen. She lit a cigarette while she paused to glare, and inhaled a deep drag. Her face faded behind a thick gray cloud as she exhaled.

“Where the fuck is that cake?” she hissed through the shroud of smoke.

Emmett shrank back from her wrath, the seat creaking with his sudden movement.

“You were supposed to be home hours ago.”

“Pause,” he said, unaware that he was shouting.

The picture froze, and he was dismayed to notice crow’s feet, subtle, but there, visible around her angry brown eyes. It only reminded him of how long it had been since he’d really looked at her. Her painted lips reflected the overhead lights in the kitchen, and her long dark hair, like night without stars, showed not a trace of gray. Despite her smoking, Sylvia’s teeth gleamed a shocking white, as scary as a hungry shark’s. She was beautiful, but he couldn’t remember why he’d fallen in love with her, on a sunny day at the library on a university campus a thousand life times ago.

“Take me home,” he said to the car.

“Three. Two. One,” the car said, and the huge V-8 engine rumbled to life.

“Engaging autopilot. We’ll avoid the risk of a high speed impact by steering clear of the interstate.”

The car headed west down Central with Emmett buckled snugly in the plush leather driver’s seat like a two-year-old in a car seat. He had nothing to do. Ibuka-Blue was in complete control. He’d have felt more at ease with his sixteen-year-old daughter behind the wheel. Kelly had grown into a heart breaking carbon copy of her mother. With Ibuka-Blue driving, the effect was like being on a city bus. He looked out the window at the passing scenery, but from his relaxed, detached vantage point, familiar places took on a foreign feel, a disorientation set in, and streets he traveled every day became unfamiliar.

“Play,” he said in frustration.

The car’s response time did not slow, even with its Ibuka-Blue chips focused on the navigation. When the message resumed Sylvia looked away.

“You talk to him,” she said to someone off camera. She stormed out of the picture, wisps of smoke curling in her wake, and for a moment he could see his refrigerator looking back at him. Instead of an icemaker inset in the door it had a screen and an Ibuka-Blue orb, and because of the party, the screen, which usually had a small list of groceries on it, had only three messages:



E.Houser… running late... ETA 07:55

DUI

Birthday Cake







It literally meant that Mr. Emmett Houser was running late on his way home from work, and that technically, even though he was not driving, he was behind the wheel, and was, in the eyes of society, and the glaring blue Ibuka-Blue orb; driving under the influence.

The third line blinked on, off, on, off, in red. The house was missing one sweet sixteen-birthday cake, and the condition was critical! Red alert!

Kelly glided onto the screen.

“Hi daddy,” she said. “Did mom tell you about the cake?”

What, the fucking Keebler elves couldn’t jam a fucking Ibuka-Blue chip into the cake and have it drive itself to the god damn party? I thought this was the twenty first century! He wanted to shout. Instead, he listened to her ramble on about a certain flavor cake, and a special icing only available at this particular time of year, and…

…and he hated himself.

“Pause,” he said.

Looking at her he could almost remember how Sylvia had captivated him. The love had died almost three years ago. No great cataclysm. No lusty Armageddon. Like falling snow that never stopped, an ice age.

“Where did she say I could get this-mayfly cake of hers?”

The blue orb in the center of the useless steering wheel blinked bright, low, high, as the Ibuka-Blue processed his words.

“Mayfly?” it said, smacking him with his own sarcasm.

“Where can I pick up this holy sweet sixteen cake Kelly has to have?”

The center console beeped, and Kelly’s image was replaced with an Ibuka-Blue map; the address highlighted in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Emmett sighed. The address was in Tampa; Olivia’s Butterfly Bakery.

The map indicated a route that would take him east on Park Boulevard, north on interstate 275, and east over the Howard Frankland Bridge. It said the trip from point A to point B could be completed in thirty-nine minutes. Emmett figured it was an accurate estimation for anyone living in a science fiction future complete with jet packs, and endless blue skies.

“Maybe if I had my jet pack,” he said to himself.

The car responded only with a few pulses of blue light, and silence.

He hated the car. He hated his wife. He hated a cake he’d never even tasted.

Mostly he hated Ibuka-Blue.

He glanced at the clock on the dash. It was not quite seven P.M.

“We’re going to Tampa,” Emmett said, “and don’t give me any of your Ibuka-Blue bullshit about avoiding high speed impacts by steering clear of the interstate. I need that damn cake. Got it?”

He looked out the window, frantically trying to figure out where he was. When he heard the familiar thrum of tires rolling over brick, he realized he was on Park Street, still in St. Petersburg, passing by a row of stately mansions. He remembered summer days spent fishing off a dock jutting into the inter-coastal waterway behind one of the huge houses that had been old long before he’d been born.

A police car wove through traffic coming up fast, and Emmett watched in the rear view-mirror as it slid in behind him. To Emmett it felt like being policed in film noir, as the police car followed him with no siren, and no emergency lights, only the pulsing Ibuka-Blue bulbs that indicated invisible packets of data passing from car to car.

That the autopilot was engaged and could not be disengaged without a negative Breathalyzer was the only relevant data, but the cop stayed behind him, riding along sifting through bits of Emmett’s life like a pack rat at a rummage sale.



A jalopy sped by in the left lane. The old car had no Ibuka-Blue, and the Luddite behind the wheel drove with reckless bravado. Emmett tried to get a look at the driver, but the car went by so fast he missed his chance.

“Play the next message,” Emmett said as he watched the car’s tail lights fade in the distance.

The center console revealed another image of Sylvia. She looked composed, like she’d had a Martini or a Manhattan. She was calling from their bedroom.

“I swear Emmett. I really can’t imagine what could possibly be more important to you than Kelly’s party. We’ve only been talking about it for a month now.”

She stood still, rigid, totally in control. When Sylvia paused for a deep breath Emmett could hear Kelly and Kelly’s friends faintly in the background. It sounded like they were getting the party started.

“This was supposed to be a special night. We picked that cake out months ago. It’s a special cake for a special young lady. Does special even mean anything to you Emmett?”

“Pause,” Emmett said. “How much is this Special Cake going to cost me?”

“The cake serves twenty five, and each serving costs fifty dollars. One thousand two hundred fifty all together,” the car said, and to Emmett it seemed even Ibuka-Blue balked at such a pricey lump of sugar. He resented her, and he resented feeling angry about a cake. Sylvia had struggled hard to escape life in a crumbling trailer park, and once she’d scrapped that old life away, it was gone forever. She appreciated only the finer things in life.

“When did this message come in,” Emmett asked.

He took his eyes away from the still frame of Sylvia standing in the dimly lit bedroom and glanced in the rear-view. The cop was gone. Another car was behind him, synced with his, and behind it, yet another also synced, and the little trio moved as one down Starkey Road, like cars on a theme park ride.

“Sylvia called at 05:30 P.M.”

That meant that the voices he’d heard in the background were not really partygoers, but Kelly’s regular clique. They were probably just putting the decorations up getting ready for the party.

“Play.”

“Do you want me to go to Publix? Do you want just another typical lump of sugar, flower, and generic icing? Do you want me to go to Publix?” She made it sound like a threat. It was one of the things he detested about her, one of the big ones. She could say something like: Do you want me to go to Publix, and make it sound like asking her to take on a dangerous mission down the highway to hell, like she’d be risking life and limb, dodging demons and the souls of the damned, all for some grocery store cake, the kind of common garden-variety cake available at any office party, baby shower, or birthday party. This was sweet sixteen. This was serious.

“Delete,” he said.

The screen went dark for a moment, and then it resolved into a picture of the two of them standing in the kitchen with one arm over each other’s shoulder. Solidarity. They were not smiling.

“Two billion,” he said to the image of his wife and his oldest daughter, but he had no words to justify the last two hours wasted at some bar celebrating when he could have been driving home. (insert office scene here?) He should have been picking up The Special Cake! He searched for forgiveness in their eyes, but found only a glint of steely resolve.

Emmett knew that from where they stood, in the kitchen, facing an Ibuka-Blue orb, their view included a long stretch of counter top under a row of cabinets, and that in the gap between, they could see nothing more exciting than a sofa, a love seat, a casual dinning table, and a sixty-five inch television hanging on the wall. They had a view of the family room, only judging by their expressions, it looked like they had discovered a wild animal, perhaps a hungry tiger curled up on the sofa, and were afraid to draw its attention.

“One, two, three,” he said to himself, “play.”

“Emmett. Emmett. Emmett,” Sylvia said, “I don’t know what to say to you. I really don’t. Maybe you should just check into a hotel. Or better yet how about a treatment center. I mean you clearly don’t care, so why pretend?”

“Daddy I really wanted to see you at my party, but maybe mom’s right,” Kelly said. She spoke as if she was having a detailed discussion about politics or geography with a seven year old.

“Yeah, and you can forget that special cake…”

“Pause. Call home.”

The picture on the screen changed, and the first image Emmett saw was his own face, the Ibuka-Blue view from the steering wheel in front of him.

The computer clicked and whirred and emitted a series of beeps as it dialed the Houser residence. Emmitt waited, telling himself to be cool, but the longer he waited the more he doubted that he could be. The phone rang, and rang, but no one picked up. After five rings, he got the machine. It was Kelly’s voice, and though the recording was over a year old, she sounded all grown up. He felt a mixture of pride, and sadness.

“You’ve reached the Houser residence,” she said, “but we can’t come to the phone right now. Please, wait for the beep and leave us a message.”

He listened to the creepy sound of Ibuka-Blue humming, and waited for the all important beep.

“Yeah, you girls can relax; in fact, the whole family can relax. It took some finesse, but we got the deal-two billion dollars. It’ll buy a lot of cake,” he said, regretting the sarcasm that slipped in, “and speaking of cake, I’m on my way to Tampa to pick up that special cake for the birthday girl. The computer says I’ll be home around eight-thirty. You two hold down the fort-daddy’ll be home soon.”

Ibuka-Blue waited a few moments, and Emmett sat staring at an image of his own face. He tried not to notice his own crow’s feet. A number five appeared in the lower right hand corner of the screen, and a count down began. After the five seconds the record function ended and the screen went dark.

The message light continued to blink at him from the center console, but he ignored it, and grabbed the steering wheel in both hands. It spun loosely, like a kid’s toy. A chain of cars pulled up beside him, moving north on Park Street like packets of data on a computer network. The Ibuka-Blue lights on each quarter panel of the vehicles flashed like strobe lights at a discothèque. The cars moved at exactly the same speed, and maintained a minimum safe distance of just five feet. Somewhere behind them, a frustrated Luddite leaned on their horn, trapped behind a solid wall of Ibuka-Blue, chains of cars moving smartly down the road.

The traffic slowed as it approached the intersection of Park Street and Park Boulevard. Cars began moving in strange unnatural patterns as they shifted positions, like product on an assembly line.

“Do you want me to go to Publix?” Emmett said in a crude falsetto. He made a funny little face as he did it. His car pulled into the right hand turn lane, moving like a lemming after the others.